


the sun ain't gonna shine anymore

by peculiar_mademoiselle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Kylo and Hux are still bad people, M/M, Masturbation, One Shot, ghost love story, some description of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7035028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiar_mademoiselle/pseuds/peculiar_mademoiselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren is dead and General Hux breathes a sigh of relief. Except, the Force works in mysterious ways. </p><p>He thinks Ren was less irritating when he was corporeal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sun ain't gonna shine anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Wonderful art by trashcanparty.tumblr.com

The Officer who informs him of Kylo Ren’s death looks as though he is about to drop dead himself.

He’s sweating bullets, shifting from foot to foot and he delivers the news in such a quiet and sombre voice that it’s almost pathetic. General Hux just blinks, but his face remains smooth and expressionless, even as the nervous man in front of him fidgets and waits for the axe to fall. It doesn’t – Hux is not so violent as Ren, or at least, not in the same way. He dismisses him, and only after he has left does the General allow himself a single tired sigh, already envisioning the coming difficult meeting with Snoke. The relief that should be flowing through his body will come in time, he presumes. Once everything is back in order.

Snoke’s displeasure is palpable, even through the holo, and the relatively diminutive General can barely suppress a gulp. The Supreme Leader is sneering, his voice laced with disappointment. To Hux, he sounds like a man who spent years on a painting, only to have it be thrown on the fire – or perhaps have it throw itself on the fire. After all, Kylo Ren had not been fully recovered from the wounds he received at Starkiller Base. His side had still been red and raw, covered with weak and shiny scabs that often his caught on clothes and were ripped off during training. The rest of his injuries were in various states of healing, and some, like the cut that bisected his face, were neglected entirely. He was too slow for the field, and that slowness cost him his life.

Hux believes the only reason he leaves the audience with Snoke unscathed is that recently his attention has moved to the scavenger girl. What good was Ren, compared to an untrained girl who could cut him up with ease? All it took was assurances that they would soon find the girl from Jakku, and Snoke was letting him go. He only has one more task to attend to, then he can put this whole sorry mess behind him.

Kylo Ren’s corpse is laid on a slab in the Star-Destroyer’s mortuary – the droid responsible for carrying out the post-mortem is standing respectfully in the corner while the General inspects the body of his rival. He cannot stop the frown that creases his forehead as he examines the corpse. Ren is naked apart from a stiff white sheet and this makes the injuries obvious. The right side of his face and body is badly burned, and has something of a melted appearance. Thick patches of his hair have burnt away, and it’s enough to make even Hux wince. He barely looks like himself at all. On his chest there are a number of deep wounds caused by debris, that have been closed with a thick black stitching; the biggest of these is a gash that runs down the side of his naked torso.

“I am told that Lord Ren was close to the detonation site of a number of Resistance explosives,” the droid intones, in a cold, female-sounding voice, making Hux’s head snap up, “which would be consistent with my findings. It appears that Lord Ren died of various blast injuries after been propelled by the explosion and then impaled by pieces of shrapnel.”

The red-haired man can’t stop a flinch at the words, and nods tightly in response. Somehow the words ‘very good’ feel inappropriate at that moment. All of a sudden, uneasiness washes over Hux, and he wants to be out of that small dank room as soon as possible. The situation feels too reminiscent of the hours spent on the shuttle after the destruction of his beloved weapon, a gravely injured Kylo Ren feverishly tossing and turning on the bed, whining and babbling nonsense to no-one. Except this time, Ren is quiet.

“Very well. I authorise you to begin the cremation procedure.”

“Yes sir. And do you have any preference on what we do with the remains?”

For a moment, he considers telling the droid to dispose of them, but some vestige of sentimentality flares up and forces him to do otherwise, “Place them in an urn and bring them to my quarters,”

* * *

 

Life without Kylo Ren is far simpler, and for this Hux is grateful. He is free to go about his business, without a frustrated and infantile mystic hacking up any consoles, and conversation with Snoke is more limited now that he is no longer overseeing his pupil. Yet, he cannot allow himself to fully enjoy it, every time he tries to inwardly relish in the ordered quiet of The Finalizer, his mind wanders to the box of ashes currently stored in his cupboard. Walking along the Bridge, he tells himself it’s nothing more than the loss of a co-commander – Ren had been bratty and obstinate, but they had still had something of a tenuous partnership.

After all, people are known to mourn even the most hated of pets.

Missing Ren was something that mostly crept into his mind during command meetings. Although Hux was aware that he had gotten off remarkably lightly following the destruction of Starkiller Base, respect from other Commanders was incredibly difficult to regain. The only person of a high ranking who seemingly treated him the same was Captain Phasma. Many others had heard of how Hux had fled from his post, and now that Kylo Ren was dead, it seemed that he had done so for no reason. His actions were now retrospectively stained with even more dishonour. Therefore much of what he said in strategic meetings was brushed aside, simply because it came from his mouth. Being who he was, he kept his exasperation behind pursed lips and cold eyes, but it swirled around his mind often.

He dreamt about the command meeting that night. He was talking and talking, until his mouth was dry, but the other commanders were pointedly looking away, having their own conversations. He felt as though he was trapped in a glass box, screaming for attention and no-one cared, or even noticed. Suddenly, the feeling of the dream changed. Darkness bled through the room, but it didn’t exacerbate the nightmare, rather, it was somewhat comforting. The Commander opposite Hux, who was all cheekbones and stringy hair – a member of the House of Tarkin – began choking for air.

Kylo Ren stood in the corner of the room, mask and robes in place. The very air around him crackled with power, and he was clenching one outstretched, leather gloved fist. Hux felt his own mouth twist into a smirk as he watched the Commander fall against the circular table, breath rattling in his thin chest.

He awoke with a start, aware that he was still smiling. His face fell though, as soon as he realised why he had stirred from his sleep. The feeling of being watched was not new to Hux, but nobody likes that creeping feeling, especially when alone in a darkened bedroom.

“Millicent!” he hissed, hoping that it was simply his cat watching him sleep. It wasn’t, he could still make out the shape of her asleep in her bed. Sliding on his slippers and stumbling to the fresher, he flicked on the lights and leant down to splash cold water on his face. Glancing up, he met his own eyes in the mirror.

They were still bloodshot, and his hair was in utter disarray. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to calm himself, despite the fact that the feeling had not subsided. Then, he met another pair of eyes in the mirror.

Kylo Ren was stood over his right shoulder. Unlike in his dream, this Kylo Ren was maskless, and his large dark eyes were gazing imploring at Hux’s reflection. The General himself could feel his breath hitching and he quickly turned around.

His bathroom was empty. Breathing deeply, Hux let his eyes close and his heart-rate slow. How ridiculous, to let an invention of his sleep-addled mind rattle him so! He returned to bed, and if he slept with his lights on 100% that night, then no-one would know but Millicent and himself.

The following morning he awoke with a start, aching and shaky after a restless night of sleep. Groaning softly, he pulled himself up out of bed, his eyes burning under the bright lights. Throwing his legs over the bed, he took a moment to collect himself, rubbing his eyes until he could see stars. Glancing at the blue glowing numbers on his bedside table, he could see that he had just enough time to make himself presentable before his shift. Damn that ridiculous nightmare; he felt about as rested as one would have if they’d tried to sleep on the streets of Coruscant.

“You’re looking well, _General_ ,”

Hux started, throwing himself to his feet and whipping round. It couldn’t be – it just couldn’t. But…only one person said his title that way, as though they were throwing the most cutting of insults.

The former Master of the Knights of Ren was stood at the foot of his bed. Like the vision the night before, the face was bare, and Hux noticed, utterly unblemished. The ridiculous non-regulation hair fell in soft dark curls, as though recently washed and unbraided. Clad in simple dark robes, the spectre was expressionless, except for a small glimmer of amusement in response to having caught Hux so thoroughly off-guard.

The red-headed General simply sighed and closed his eyes.

“I truly hoped I would die before I went mad,”

Yet some part of Hux believed that his psyche couldn’t possibly recreate Ren’s little huff of exasperation so _perfectly_.

“You haven’t gone mad, Hux. Look at me.”

Hux did, and noticed for the first time, the odd blue shimmer around his frame. If he tried, he could see his dresser through the translucent torso of Kylo Ren.

“Ah. Your sorcery may be more powerful than I thought, given that I know for a fact your earthly remains are currently in that cupboard,”

It’s a shock to him, how calm he sounds, but Ren’s face sours, as though he had just bitten into a particularly bitter fruit.

“I saw. Why? As a reminder of your victory? Well, you did it, General. You win, you got what you always wanted…you got-,”

Already Hux could feel an old and warm anger churning in his gut, and oddly he feels the horrifying urge to smile. This was well-worn ground, and comforting in its familiarity. The instinctive urge to contradict, combined with the same trace of emotion that caused him to keep the ashes makes him automatically argue back.

“I didn’t actually want you _dead_ , Ren,”

It’s a shock to him, to hear those words aloud. Because only now has he realised the truth of them. It is ludicrous, and nonsensical but Hux knew if there was some way he could go back and prevent Kylo Ren from leaving that fateful day, he would. The words are apparently a shock to Ren as well, who has stopped talking, brow furrowed in confusion.

Clearing his throat as an attempt to banish any sentimentality, Hux briskly tried to move the conversation on.

“So, what now? Are you back? The ghost of the Master of the Knights of Ren, co-commander of The Finalizer?”

He hates the hope in his own voice.

Yet, Ren is already shaking his head, his facial expression back under control.

“No. They can’t see me.”

Before Hux can even respond – and rightfully question that, Ren simply fades away into nothing. The room is empty and undisturbed, as if he were never there.

* * *

 

Since childhood, Armitage Hux had prided himself on remaining calm in the face of all situations. But even he had to admit, this was beyond any training he had received at the Academy. Unfortunately there’s no regulation to follow regarding the undeath of a barely tolerated colleague.

All day he finds himself checking every room before he enters it, and glancing behind him at every available opportunity. He’s sure he doesn’t actually appear overly skittish, not to anyone but Phasma anyway. She’s staring at him from behind her chrome armour, but somehow he can still feel her radiating confusion and slight concern.

Part of him is hoping that the Supreme Leader will send for him, if only so he could get some kind of clarification on this Force-business. What on earth did Ren mean when he said the others couldn’t see him? Why on earth could he do so, then?

That evening, Hux sat in his quarters, absently scanning through his datapad. He was barely reading the reports though, hyper-aware of everything going on in his room.

He felt it when Ren appeared. There was something like a cool breeze down his back, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Attempting to remain collected, he span round on his high backed leather chair, fingers pressed together.

“It’s rather rude to arrive in someone’s quarters unannounced,” he sniped.

Ren, for once, looked utterly unfazed. He stood, looming over Hux, lips pursed.

“I’m afraid I now lack the ability to knock,”

Despite the twitch of amusement in his lips, Hux continued to glower, though it lacked any real anger. When did the rage that usually flared up at the sight of Ren disappear? Now, Ren felt like a memento from a simpler time, from before his life literally crumbled to dust.

“What did you mean, when you said the others couldn’t see you?”

He doesn’t expect Ren to answer, he’d never been particularly forthcoming or co-operative before. So he’s pleasantly surprised when he sighs and relaxes, looking at Hux more openly than he ever has.

“I don’t know why. I’d only ever heard of force-sensitive people being able to see…those who were no longer-,”

Hux cuts him off, irritated by his colleague’s halting speech.

“Surely you’re not suggesting that I’m..like you?”

Ren scoffs, and turns his nose up, the air of arrogance that he adopts when talking about his own powers washing over him. It makes Hux twitch out of sheer irritation. Well, look at where Ren’s powers got him. Pulled out of his fairytale family, and now a box in a standard regulation dresser.

“Of course not. You’re about as force-sensitive as that desk.”

Hux can’t even bring himself to be offended.

“Then why?”

“I think it may be to do with our pre-existing – our knowledge of each other. Or my knowledge of you, at least,”

It’s obvious that Ren was going to use the word ‘relationship’, and the mere thought makes Hux’s chest clench. Not that he’d ever let the other man know that, as he schools his expression into something carefully blank.

“What about your dear Mother? Surely she can see you?”

It’s a low blow, and Hux knows it. But something about Ren’s demeanour just makes him want to act in a venomous way. The mention of General Organa causes the younger man to seize up, face contorting with rage. Hux is aware that the death of Han Solo had left an indelible mark on Kylo Ren; a wound more damaging than any left by the scavenger girl. He was not a good man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the famed ‘Jedi-killer’ wasn’t the concretely evil man he was painted to be. He was conflicted – painfully stretched between two opposing ideologies.

“She’s nothing to me,”

A blatant lie. Hux can’t stop the snort that escapes him, how can Ren be so insufferably stubborn? Especially now. His childishness sets his teeth on edge.

“What about your Father? Have you run into him between here and the next life?”

Ren’s fists are clenched and he looks as though he’d smash something – if he still had the ability. But his face looks like that of a feral cat.

“No. And unfortunately I don’t seem to have access to hell, to visit _your_ Father,”

He means it as a vicious attack, and it does as it is intended. Hux may not have been particularly close with his Father, certainly not in the same sickeningly sentimental way Ren was connected to his own family. Yet, he is still fiercely proud of his Father’s achievements, clings onto his legacy and bears his name with pride. Ren knew that the late Commandant Hux was his weak spot, and like the good predator he was, went for it immediately.

Anger rises in him, but it’s quickly tempered. Usually after Ren said something like that, Hux would fume for a shift or so, then eventually try to catch the other man out in some other way. Perhaps make him look incompetent in front of Snoke, or even just childish in front of the crew. He sighs.

“What’s the point in bickering like this, Ren?”

The tired tone of his voice must disturb the other man, because the anger bleeds out of his posture almost immediately. His face slackens, and his lips part.

“What do you mean?”

“What could possibly come out of this…dispute? I can’t do anything to you. And you can’t do anything to me. It appears we are at something of an impasse.”

Ren blinks, and his face puckers somewhat. He looks so monumentally put-out, that for one horrific moment Hux thinks he’s going to cry.

“I just wanted this one thing to stay the same.”

Hux’s stomach drops when he realises what Ren is referring to, and has the strangest compulsion to comfort the taller man. So, naturally, he does not.

“I’m dead, Hux. _Dead_. I’ve spent the last few days wandering around what feels like every place I’ve ever been. And no-one can see me. But for some reason you can, and I thought-,”

He cuts himself off, inhaling sharply. Hux knows what he thought, he thought that their dynamic, or whatever it was, would remain unaltered. That his reputation as the General with a piece of flint instead of a heart would mean that he was so unmoved by Ren’s death that he could just slip into their old rhythm. Hux himself can barely believe that it’s not so, but it isn’t.

“I apologise,”

The words sound awkward in his mouth, stiff. And if Ren had been frustrated before, he looks enraged now.

“Please don’t. Don’t even try!”

Infuriated, Hux stands, fists curling up at his sides.

“Then what do you want?”

It comes out softer than he’d hoped, more pleading than angry. Ren senses it, and his eyes flick to the floor, sheepish.

“Can I spend some time with you?”

He winces before the sentence is even out of his mouth, cringing. At first, Hux is dismayed at the thought of being shadowed by a bat-like spectre for a single minute more. However, it only takes one look at Ren’s wide brown eyes and he’s acquiescing with a sharp nod, and turning back to his work.

It should be horrendous, but having Ren around actually turns out to be somewhat beneficial. Although his link to the force is incredibly weak in his current state, he’s still very observant, and capable of picking up the emotions of anyone from the smallest of cues. Command meetings are going far more smoothly, now that he can send Ren to spy beforehand, and he has him whispering advice the whole time.

After a while, Hux even finds himself enjoying his time with Ren. There’s something incredibly safe about relaxing around someone who can pass no information on. One evening, Hux is reviewing the day’s work when Ren makes a particularly cutting remark about one of the pro-New Republic senators. The comment is so off-colour and yet so sharp that it startles a splutter of a laugh out of him. Ren stares at him for a moment, before his face breaks out into the most ridiculous grin that Hux has ever seen. It lights up his face, and for one single moment, Kylo Ren looks like an innocent.

Not even Hux can refrain from smiling back.

 

They settle into a far easier rhythm after that, sharing tales, with Hux lying awake until his eyes are burning, just to talk to him. He finds that being basically silent their whole life with the Order, has allowed for the build-up of many stories. Hux learns that Ren is actually a proficient pilot, and always has been – he speaks of when he was ten and he stole his Father’s ship and flew it home, after he grew bored of whatever errand his Father had been doing. His Mother was frantic, but he remembers his Father being more proud than mad.

In return, Hux shows the tattoo on his left shoulder blade, a somewhat wonky First Order insignia. It was done by Hux’s best…acquaintance at the Academy, a cadet named Shapira. She inked it in with a safety pin. He tells of what was, for once in his life, a major lack of foresight, as he had to shower with his back to the wall for the next three years, so no-one saw. Ren imagines this and laughs and laughs and laughs.

Of course, there’s still a dark undercurrent to everything. For one, Ren’s Father is gone, and Shapira was sent on a mission on a rainy New Republic planet, three years ago. It ended in a skirmish, and after a blow to the head she drowned in a shallow pool of filthy water.

What’s more, Hux is aware on some level that he is falling back on these conversations with Ren because the Order is slowly, but surely, crumbling. Since the loss of Starkiller, and the addition of a Force-sensitive to their midst, the Resistance have become bolder. Moreover, the loss of Ren has created something of a gulf between the Order and the Supreme Leader. They are basically directionless; clinging to control that’s slipping between their fingers like sand.

As he lay in the dark, laughing with Ren, Hux already feels as though he is suspended in the liminal between life and death.

That night, his dreams start out murky and frightening. He’s running through a darkened forest, but the ground beneath his feet is cracking like egg shell. In the cracks is a bright red light and a searing heat, burning his legs just by proximity. Panic-stricken, he keeps running, the pounding of his heart echoing in his head.

Suddenly, the ground firms up, and the sky fills with bright sunlight. He’s stood in a clearing, full of long grass and colourful flowers. In the corner, is a pool of turquoise water, a small waterfall cascading off an outcropping into it, and throwing tiny rainbows in the sun.

Absently, Hux realises that this is the setting of one of Ren’s childhood stories.

As if summoned by the mere mention of himself, Kylo Ren suddenly wades out from behind the fountain. His long dark hair is wet, dripping down his back, and behind his endearingly large ears. However, it’s his bare chest that has Hux’s mouth dry. His pale and toned abdomen is dotted with dark freckles, and water is slowly trickling down it. Ren smirks at Hux, and flicks some of the cool water at him.

“Are you just going to stand there all day?”

After Hux remains frozen, Ren pulls himself out of the waist-deep pool, sitting side-ways on. He’s completely naked, his long pale legs bare and wet against the grass. His shapely ass, totally on show. He’s gazing imploringly at him now, wide eyes the deepest brown, he sighs and licks his large and full lips…

Hux isn’t sure when he came to be awake, but he is, and before he can even think about it, he has his hard length in his hand. He’s pulling himself off like he never has, writhing and already sweating in his bed. His eyes screw up, and he pictures Ren’s beautiful sculpted body. In his mind’s eye, he’s running his tongue up the length of his chest, putting both his hands on his perfectly rounded behind, sucking on the sensitive skin behind his ear... He finishes with a yell, muttering Ren’s name like it’s the end of the universe and Ren is the only being that can save him.

After a few deep breaths, he regains some kind of equilibrium and cracks his eyes open. He immediately wants to squeeze them shut and disappear forever. Ren is stood at the foot of his bed, panting and looking utterly shell-shocked – he has one hand outstretched, and the look in his eyes is nothing less than devastation.

“I’m sorry,” he bites out, and vanishes.

* * *

 

Kylo Ren hadn’t had a real home in years. Truthfully, he felt like the whole concept was lost to him the moment his parents sent him away. From that point on, he was cut adrift, seemingly unwanted by everyone he knew. The irony wasn’t lost on him that he had finally felt like he had regained the idea of a ‘home’ after he had lost literally everything else.

Therefore it seemed only right that after fleeing Hux’s room he would return here. To her. General Organa looked weary, worn down by the world and all the tragedies that she’d been forced to endure. Ren had watched unseen, as she was shown the footage of his death. As he was thrown back, hitting the ground with a sickening _thwack_ , even the ever composed General couldn’t hold back a flinch. She kept it together until she was alone; as soon as she got back to her private rooms, she fell to her knees and sobbed like her world was ending.

In a way that Ren couldn’t comprehend, it was. She had never once given up that shred of hope that her son would return to her, and now he never would.

Yet, she goes on. War waits for nobody, and the First Order doesn’t die with her child. They stole him away, ruined and broke him - of course they wouldn’t care when he was lost to them.

Ren is unsure why he’s here, as he stands in the shadows, watching his Mother’s back, as she works over a datapad. He walks up behind her, aware that his approach no longer makes any sound.

He starts when he sees the datapad. His Mother is reading over something that looks very much like the schematics of his ship, alongside notes and several areas marked with red x’s. It details a coming attack on The Finalizer – an extremely complex and well-informed attack. Quelling the urge to curse, he tries to commit as much as possible to memory. There must be a leak within the Order that Hux had yet to detect, and a big one, if this was anything to go by.

Despite the fact that his physical body is gone, Ren swears that he can still feel some sensations. For instance, as he realises when this strike is to take place, he swears it feels like ice water is sliding through his veins. It isn’t a coming strike, it’s an imminent one. His Mother is burning the midnight oil not because of grief or weariness, but rather she is receiving updates as they happen.

There’s suddenly only one person on his mind.

Yet, in his concentration, he had failed to notice that General Organa had spotted him, and was now staring at him, face stony but eyes wet.

“Ben,”

She says her child’s name like a prayer, her voice tremulous and almost reverential. Ren remembers that his Mother never saw him grown in the flesh – and though she isn’t exactly doing that now, it’s as close as she will ever come. And there’s such hope in her eyes. She must believe that he is here to posthumously grovel and submit to the light. To claim that he was blinded and led astray, and dying has leant him a great deal of perspective. Unfortunately Kylo Ren is not so kind.

Although something indefinable twists at the sight of his Mother’s aged face, he takes a very deliberate look at her datapad, avoiding her eyes, and then vanishes from her sight altogether.

If he hears her broken sob as he leaves, it does not move him.

He’s back on his Star Destroyer as soon as he thinks it, and all seems quiet for now. He zips through corridors, searching for Hux, and finds him returning to The Bridge, briskly walking down a connecting corridor. Seeing the General so tightly wound and put together after the night’s events jolts Kylo somewhere in his chest. However, his own feelings can be dealt with later, this is more important.

“Hux, listen to me. There’s going to be a Resistance attack on The Bridge – get everyone out of there,”

The red-headed General blinks, lips parted slightly in surprise. It’s so unlike Hux that Kylo can feel himself getting irate.

“Now!”

His anger spurs Hux into action, and he evacuates The Bridge immediately, calling for reinforcements. By the time the strike team of Rebels arrives (some in Stormtrooper armour) they are heavily outnumbered. Most are easily gunned down, their bodies falling like puppets whose strings have been cut, creating a messy pool of blood on the floor. Hux purses his lips and some part of Ren wants to laugh. He never understood why Hux was so tied up about the cleanliness of his ship – someone else would take care of any mess _they_ made.

But he is relieved, for a moment. He knows that Organa will know that he betrayed her, and take more precautions, but in this instance, Hux is standing, safe and well. That’s more important. His contentment is short-lived though, as a Rebel who had seemingly been dead, slumped over a console, pushes herself up and throws herself at Hux with all her might. There’s dark red rivulets of blood running out of her nose and mouth, and her torso is a singed mess. Her tanned skin is losing colour quickly, and blood connects her many freckles like the lines one draws between stars to highlight constellations.

Yet in her hand, she holds a small knife. A concealable and practical weapon, a sharp silver triangle, with a handle embossed with the Resistance symbol. She dies before she can even collapse again, dead before she hits the ground. Yet, not before she manages to bury the knife in Hux’s chest. Of course, Hux has combat training, and his instincts are even better than his skills, so the blade is closer to his shoulder than his heart. That doesn’t stop Ren diving forward and crying out as Hux falls. He’s frantic, so panicked that he barely registers that his hands slow Hux’s descent to the floor.

Soldiers are on Hux within seconds, carrying him away to medical. Ren lingers for a minute, staring at his transparent hands.

General Hux, unsurprisingly, is fine. His shoulder is heavily bound up with bacta patches, and an IV drip containing painkillers is hooked up to a pale arm, but other than that, he’s utterly okay. It doesn’t stop Kylo from worrying though. As soon as he is awake and alone, Kylo materialises, lecturing Hux about watching his back.

The whole time Hux eyes him, tiredly, nodding with all the enthusiasm of a child who has just been told that they’ll be going on holiday to Tattooine this year. (Not that Ren would dislike Tattooine, in fact he’s made quite a few pilgrimages, to pay his respects to his Grandfather). When he’s finally finished, Hux just sighs, lifting slightly glazed turquoise eyes to his face.

“I think we need to talk about this morning,”

It’s the last thing Kylo is expecting, he was so ready for Hux to pretend the whole thing didn’t happen. That it was some crazy delusion of Kylo’s. He didn’t expect the proud General to admit to sleepily whacking off at the thought of his deceased co-worker.

“If that is what you wish,”

It comes out more deadpan than he intends. But it doesn’t deter Hux from delivering a clearly prepared speech.

“I would like to extend my most sincere apologies to you for my actions this morning. It was a mistake, that my sleep-deprived and stressed mind perpetuated. I can assure you that no such…delusion should ever affect me again,”

His cheeks are tinged pink by the end of it. And if Kylo still had a blood flow, he knows his would be too. But not out of embarrassment, but out of rage. After the last couple of weeks, Ren had felt that he and Hux had deepened their relationship substantially. To the point that Hux had become the focal point of Ren’s existence. To hear such a man try to awkwardly deny his feelings for Ren was incredibly infuriating. And that knot of emotion reaches up and works his mouth.

“Bullshit. You can’t acknowledge it and pretend it didn’t happen. That you didn’t want it to happen,”

Spluttering, the other man tries to sit up as straight as his bandages will allow, face contorting.

“Don’t presume to tell me what I can and cannot do,”

Sniping will always be Hux’s best way of dealing with a confrontation. It’s more effective than smashing everything in sight. Although part of him does want to throw the IV stand at Ren’s pouting face.

“I’ll stop when you tell me the _truth_ ,”

Maybe it’s the tiredness, or the drugs, or just the whole conversation, but Hux snaps like a tightly pulled string.

“What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you that you’re fucking beautiful? That the thought of touching you is almost enough to get me off alone? Or should I humiliate myself further, and tell you how over the last few weeks, you have become my closest confidant, my best friend? Should I tell you that I love you, Ren? Is that what you need to hear?”

Ren feels frozen, a contrast to Hux, who is now blushing a deep beet red. To hear his own feelings echoed back, no matter how angrily conveyed, is a feeling the like of which he has never felt. When he was Ben, the little boy who loved his Mummy and his Daddy, he still felt like the love he gave wasn’t matched by the love he received, in both quality and quantity. Yet, with Hux, he felt his own feelings returned. Hux balanced him in so many ways, yet this was the best. So overwhelmed with emotion, he knelt down, and focused on how he felt when he saw Hux fall.

Softly and reverentially, he pressed his own plump lips to Hux’s. The General started as he felt them. Not as he would have were he alive, but rather as a kind of cold pressure. Like someone with perpetually cool hands pressing two fingers to his mouth.

Pulling away, Ren was heartbroken to see that Hux’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. It’s a vulnerability that he’s never seen him display before.

“This is impossible,”

Hux’s voice breaks on the last word, the whole sentence choked with emotion.

“Nothing is impossible,”

He sounds like his Uncle, but he can take that if it makes Hux see sense.

“That’s not true. This would have been impossible when you were alive, Kylo. I would have been killed before you could even think the word ‘lover’. But you’re not alive, you’re dead. Stars, you’re fucking _dead_ ,”

He recoils, as though struck, but Hux is not done yet.

“What do you want us to do? Do you want to haunt me for the rest of my life – like some sort of romantic ghoul? No. It’s over for us on that front, Ren. It was over before it even began,”

And then he turns his head to the side, and speaks no more.

So Kylo Ren leaves. Wandering like a true shade, returning to everything he’s left behind.

He sees his Mother, hearing about the failed attack. The fact that the Order was forewarned. She gives a speech, honouring the dead, and that evening takes a carved wooden box outside. She transfers the contents into a metal bucket – a lock of dark hair, a tiny outfit, embroidered with cartoonish tauntauns, a stuffed rancor, with a smiley mouth, and a stack of scribbly drawings.

He watches as she sets it alight, and stands behind her as she swallows her tears and watches it burn.

He visits the scavenger girl, with him gone, she has turned her attention to Snoke. As he watches her wield a double bladed green lightsaber, hacking a training model to pieces, he thinks that she might just have a chance. The slight pride that he feels is echoed tenfold in the eyes of his Uncle.

He also trails Poe Dameron, out of a morbid curiosity. The pilot was everything he wished he was, once. Poe is good to the core, and it’s almost nauseating to watch him circulate the base, smiling and laughing with everyone he sees. It’s even more masochistic to watch him at night, to see him lie in the arms of the traitor Stormtrooper. The stab of envy he feels, watching FN-2187 nuzzle into Dameron’s neck seems more painful than his actual death.

Eventually though, he goes home. He appears in Hux’s quarters, unannounced, to see Hux furiously typing at his desk. He steps forward, and knows when he’s in Hux’s line of vision when the General stiffens. After a moment of tense silence, he exhales, switching off his work and lying on his bed. He shuffles over to one side, absently patting the space next to him.

“You haven’t seen my slippers, have you, Ren? My feet are awfully cold.”

Kylo Ren’s lips turn up into a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! again, the beautiful and amazing art is by nerium who can be found at trashcanparty.tumblr.com - check out their blog!!
> 
> The title is inspired by a scene from 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' - a much sweeter ghost love story.
> 
> and yeah, the ending is inspired by a certain musical, because my love of musical theatre bleeds into every other part of my life. (sorry)


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